Kiribati (pronounced KI-ruh-bas) owns
the Pacific's second largest Exclusive Economic Zone, behind
French Polynesia. Its Micronesian inhabitants speak a language
in which the letter 's' (which doesn't exist in their 13 letter
alphabet) is written as 'ti'. This explains the difference
between the spelling of Kiribati and the way it is pronounced.

Facts and Figures

Total Land
Area:Exclusive Economic Zone:
Number of Islands:Capital:Main Island:
Population:Languages:Political Status:Head of State:Head of Government:Currency: GDP/capita (A$):

Government

Kiribati is a democratic republic with a 42-member parliament (Maneaba-ni Maungatabu) elected for a four-year term by universal vote. One seat is reserved for the inhabitants of the island of Banaba, who actually live on Rabi Island in Fiji.

During each election, a president is chosen from several
candidates put forward by the House of Assembly. The President,
who is also head of Government, appoints his cabinet. A president
can be re-elected for two more terms.

Resources

Due to its lack of natural resources, Kiribati is one of the poorest countries in the Pacific. Land is limited, soil is often infertile and agriculture is mainly limited to subsistence production. The modest size of the islands, their remoteness and their dispersal over a large area of the Pacific ocean also contribute to a lack of economic development.

The main source of revenue is the issuing of licences to distant fishing nations (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, United States) attracted by the large resources of skipjack and yellowfin tuna available in the immense Exclusive Economic Zone of Kiribati.

Copra, live fish and seaweed are the main exports. The successive Kiribati governments have been able to fund the recurring deficit of their balance of trade by using the earnings from the Revenue Equalisation Reserve Fund established with the royalties from the mining of phosphate on Banaba Island.

Another source of revenue is the remittances sent from abroad by I-Kiribati (the indigenous people of Kiribati) working overseas either as crewmen on ships or in the phosphate mine on Nauru.

Kiribati relies almost entirely on foreign aid (from Japan, UK, Australia,
New Zealand) for its development budget.

History

The three groups of islands forming today's Kiribati (Gilbert,
Phoenix and Line Islands) were settled more than 2,000 years
ago. The original settlers were from South East Asia. Later
invasions came from Fiji and Tonga.

Society was organised around the maneaba: a meeting house for the council of elders, who had authority over a district.

The first European to come across the islands was the Spanish explorer Pedro Fernandez de Quiros who spotted Butaritari (in the Gilbert group) in 1606.

The name Gilbert was given to the group in the 1820s after Captain Thomas Gilbert who located several more islands in 1788. During the second part of the 19th century, several thousand islanders were recruited (often by force) to work overseas, mainly on plantations established in Fiji, Samoa, Tahiti, Hawaii and even as far away as Central America.

Britain annexed the Gilbert Islands in 1916 (together with what is today called Tuvalu) under the name Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony. Banaba and several islands in the Line group, which had been previously annexed, were incorporated the same year. Kiritimati Island (Christmas Island) was added to the colony in 1919 and the uninhabited Phoenix Islands in 1937.

After the Tuvaluans decided to separate from the colony in 1974, the country
became independent on 12 July 1979 under its new name of Kiribati.

Main Issues

overcrowding on the main island of Tarawa and associated
problems (i.e. lagoon pollution)